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Wacom posts

Genius EasyPen and MousePen graphics tablets play on both sides of the fence

by Vladislav Savov, posted Jul 8th 2009 at 5:33AM

Genius, a regular purveyor of cheap and cheerful technology, has today announced a pair of "dual platform" tablets that play nice with both Windows and Mac OS. The EasyPen i405 comes with 28 programmable hot keys, a software bundle, 4 x 5.5-inches of real estate and a $79 price tag. This is trumped by the MousePen i608, which throws in an optical mouse, a 6 x 8-inches working area and -- best of all -- one more hot key to program. Bargain hunters out there might want to prick up their ears, as the MousePen is already available at Amazon and Newegg at prices south of $60, far below its suggested retail price of one Benjamin -- hey, it's no Wacom, but it certainly won't dent the wallet too bad.

Bridgestone's 13-inch color e-paper display handles pen input, has the future written all over it

by Paul Miller, posted Apr 17th 2009 at 11:08AM

While it'll always be difficult to accept innovative technology from a company that makes our tires, there's just no faulting Bridgestone's work in the e-paper space, or their latest color entry, above. The 13-inch display, based on "QR-LPD" tech, has what looks to be great color depth, along with snappy 0.8 second screen refreshes (great for this screen size) and actual Wacom-based pen input. There's video of it in action after the break, and if we didn't know better we'd think they were putting a Sharpie to a perfectly good display. Unfortunately, the image does look a little dim at the moment, so hopefully that's something Bridgestone can improve upon as they approach commercialization -- whenever that might be.

Continue reading Bridgestone's 13-inch color e-paper display handles pen input, has the future written all over it

Wacom's Intuos4 tablet gets put through its paces

by Joseph L. Flatley, posted Mar 25th 2009 at 9:42AM

If you're a digital artist, there's a good chance you've had your eye on Wacom's new Intuos4 tablets. The gang at PC Magazine have just put one through the ringer -- and have been kind enough to post a review for all and sundry to peep as well. According to the reviewer, the device occupies a "sweet spot" in the company's lineup. While offering decent resolution and pressure sensitivity when compared to the cut-rate Bamboo (the Intuos4 responds to as little as one gram of pressure), it still can't hold a candle to the Cintiq series -- except in price. The latter will run you up to two grand, while Wacom's newest starts at $229 and includes any two of: Photoshop Elements, Autodesk Sketchbook Express, and Corel Painter Sketch Pad. But that ain't all -- be sure to hit that read link for the full review.

Video: Wacom's intuos4 pen tablet now available with special typo pricing

by Thomas Ricker, posted Mar 25th 2009 at 4:24AM

Not much left to say about the Wacom Intuos4 that hasn't already been said in previews and repeated leaks. The pen tablet available in S ($229), M ($349), L ($469), and XL ($789) wide-format sizes. It's worth noting that the Large, with its 102.5-inches of working area is currently listed for $369 on the Wacom eStore (even up to the point of checkout) in what's most certainly a typo. Not saying they'll honor that price but you never know. Check the video introduction and feature set in the video after the break.

Gallery: Intuos4 tablet pops up on Wacom online store with official pics, pricing

[Thanks, Victor]

Read -- Intuos4
Read -- Intuos4 Large typo pricing

Continue reading Video: Wacom's intuos4 pen tablet now available with special typo pricing

Wacom's Intuos4 removes layers, gets previewed

by Ross Miller, posted Mar 24th 2009 at 2:16AM

We've already seen some blurred image of the Wacom Intuos4's box and in-store display, and now we've got some much cleaner shots and hands-on impressions from ThatPoshGirls, which seems to have come back from a years-long hiatus just to cover this tablet. The new pen base is well-received, as are the LED screens that remind what each button is programmed to do. Overall, it's what you've come to expect from the Intuos series, along with improved Windows Vista compatibility. It's worth noting that the Amazon price was spotted when a product review was submitted and was quoted at $350 for the 6 x 9 inch medium, a little less than the $480 Canadian price from Future Shop we saw yesterday. Hit up the read link below for more pics of the tablet, its pen, and most importantly, cleaner shots of the box. Of course, we're still waiting on Wacom to even acknowledge its existence, but we'd expect that announcement to be just around the corner at this point.

Read - Unboxing
Read - First Impressions
Read - Hint of Amazon's pricing

Wacom Intuos4 tablet caught out of the box, in the wild

by Ross Miller, posted Mar 22nd 2009 at 2:59PM

Still no official word on its existence, but one forum poster happened to stumble upon an out-of-the-box display for the Wacom Intuos4 pen tablet while browsing through a brick-and-mortar Future Shop. Lucky for us, he thought to snap a few pics, albeit 'shopped to appear in the traditional blurrycam art style. No word on pricing or availability, but let's hope Wacom isn't planning to tease us too much longer.

Update: An anonymous tipster managed to snap a photo of a Future Shop inventory screen that shows four Intuos4 models and pricing: 4 x 6 inch small for $299, 6 x 9 inch medium for $479, 8 x 13 inch large for $999, and 12 x 19 extra large for $649 (all prices Canadian). No clue why the extra large one is over $300 cheaper. They're all apparently in stock at the distribution center, but there's no word on when they'll actually ship to stores.

[Thanks, Joseph]

Wacom goes clubbing, unveils nextbeat NXT-1000 for "creative DJs," nothing for derivative ones

by Tim Stevens, posted Mar 16th 2009 at 7:52AM

We've been patiently waiting for Wacom to officially announce its upcoming Intuos4 tablet (recently caught by Mr. Blurrycam), so were were totally caught off-guard when the company instead unveiled a sort of foray into the music biz, a digital DJ interface destined for release in time to hit Japanese and European clubs this summer. It's called the nextbeat NXT-1000, a device with a plethora of knobs, buttons, and a small LCD for controlling samples, plus a touch-sensitive pad that seems to act as a turntable and a fingertip drum machine in one. That pad actually pops out, maintaining a wireless connection to the base and enabling fleet-footed DJs to show some moves off-stage while still dropping beats -- assuming their cans are wireless too. No word on cost at this point, but can you really put a price on that sort of musical freedom?

Gallery: Wacom nextbeat NXT-1000

[Via gizmag]

Wacom Intuos4 pen tablet spotted by Mr. Blurrycam

by Donald Melanson, posted Mar 11th 2009 at 2:24PM

There's not exactly much official word about this one just yet, but it looks like Wacom could have a little surprise in the offing for pen tablet enthusiasts, with some seemingly legit pics of the hereto unannounced Intuos4 now surfacing courtesy of our old friend Mr. Blurrycam. Unfortunately, 'ol Blurry didn't actually go so far as to open the box, although he did at least flip it over to reveal a few specs, including a wide format tablet area, some customizable ExpressKeys, a user-defined touch ring, and an apparently new and improved pressure-sensitive grip pen. Head on past the break for a closer look.

[Thanks, CGTALK]

Continue reading Wacom Intuos4 pen tablet spotted by Mr. Blurrycam

Genius intros portable G-Pen F-509 digital tablet

by Darren Murph, posted Feb 20th 2009 at 4:26PM

Unless we're mistaken, the last G-Pen device to come our direction courtesy of Genius was the M712 and M609, and at long last we've yet another to showcase. The G-Pen F-509 was designed for portable, in the car use, as it measures in at just 5.25- x 8.75-inches. Aside from sporting plenty of input real estate for that digital pen, it also features 26 programmable hot-keys for shortcuts of your choosing while the cordless pen touts a pair of buttons for controlling shapes and thickness. If the inner artist in you is just dying to wrap your arms around one, you can find it now for a buck oh nine.

Gallery: Genius intros portable G-Pen F-509 digital tablet

Wacom's PL-900 tablet is perfect for mapping out falling profits in style

by Ross Miller, posted Jan 28th 2009 at 12:41PM

Are your company meetings a series of boring charts about how the global economy is negatively impacting your bottom line? Wacom's latest business-minded PL-900 LCD tablet is sure to bring a little zest, giving you a chance to add sportscaster-esque commentary to those pessimistic PowerPoints. The PL-900 features 1280 x 1024 SXGA resolution on an anti-glare 19-inch screen, along with two USB 2.0 ports, DVI-I input and output, and a stand that inclines between 18 and 73 degrees. It's available now from the company's website for a smidgen under 1,499 euros ($1,988).

[Via Far East Gizmos]

Atari Touch Tablet unboxed 25 years after the fact

by Joseph L. Flatley, posted Jan 20th 2009 at 10:40AM

Are you an artist wishing to unchain the shackles of traditional media, looking for a way to catapult yourself and your work into the 20th Century? A chap named Benj Edwards has been kind enough to unbox for us Atari's Touch Tablet, a classic piece of kit from the bygone age of 1984 that -- alongside the Atari Artist software -- lets users manipulate the size, location and color of shapes and lines. Digitally. The software comes in two versions: the four color version for those of you with 16K RAM, and the 16 color version for those of you with 24K powerhouse workstations. When you're done with your pixel-based Mona Lisa, you can back it up to a cassette -- which will sit in a box in your parent's garage until your older sister gets around to taping an REO Speedwagon album over it. What are you waiting for? Hit that read link.

Lenovo intros the monstrous ThinkPad W700, and we get our hands all over it (updated with Wacom video demo)

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Aug 12th 2008 at 12:01AM

Like your laptops to be over-achievers? Like, the really annoyingly stacked variety of over-achiever? Enter Lenovo's newest outrage -- the ThinkPad W700. Containing enough computational artillery to level a small village, this for-creatives-only behemoth is designed for sheer pixel pushing... and little else. The system packs in two features aimed at graphic artists and photographers which are fairly unique to a laptop: a built in Wacom digitizer just to the right of the trackpad, and an on-board color calibrator. But what's happening under the hood you ask? Well for starters the 17-incher sports the first ever Intel Quad Core Extreme CPU in a laptop (no word on speeds at this point) as well as the first showing of NVIDIA's Quadro FX 3700 graphics chipset (with a hefty 1GB of memory on-board). The workstation also serves up dual hard drive bays configurable as RAID 0 or 1 (SSD or traditional disk, naturally), up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and an optional Blu-ray burner. Of course, that's fully kitted out -- the W700 starts at $2,978 and moves skyward from there. Take a look at our hands-on below and see the beast for yourself.

Update: The kids over at Notebooks dropped in some videos of the W700 including a brief look at the Wacom digitizer in action with Photoshop. Check it after the break.

Gallery: Lenovo intros the monstrous ThinkPad W700, and we get our hands all over it

Continue reading Lenovo intros the monstrous ThinkPad W700, and we get our hands all over it (updated with Wacom video demo)

iTab project continues the DIY Mac tablet tradition

by Donald Melanson, posted Jul 10th 2008 at 2:56PM

Folks have been hacking together their own Mac tablets for what seems like forever, and it looks like there's no signs of the tradition letting up, at least until Apple finally decides to make its own. This latest one from Wei of Weistudio is slightly more complex than most, however, with it employing a MacBook, a Wacom Intuos tablet, a separate 15-inch LCD panel, and some custom-made materials, along with an exhaustive amount of fine-tuning to ensure that everything worked just right. As you can see above and at the site linked below, Wei also didn't cut any corners when it came to the fit and finish of the device, right down to the Apple and crossbones logo on the back.

Wacom reveals svelte RRFC capacitive touchscreen technology

by Darren Murph, posted Apr 25th 2008 at 7:03AM

Hold on to your touch panels, folks, as Wacom has just made known its plans to reveal "a major innovation in capacitive touchscreen technology" at next month's International Society for Information Display Exhibition. The tech, dubbed Reversing Ramped Field Capacitive (RRFC) touch, relies on "reversing ramped electro-static fields" to bring unprecedented precision and "drift-free performance" to touchscreen users. Reportedly, it can be integrated into dual-input applications with the firm's EMR pen-input solution or can operate on its lonesome on devices that require just a finger touch interface. Of course, there's way more pizazz to the whole thing than we can cover in this space, but feel free to don your nerd suit and hit the read link if you're thirsty for more.

Wacom rolls out the Cintiq 20WSX interactive pen display

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Dec 4th 2007 at 9:20AM

If you're an artist or designer who needs a little more real estate, or if your project happens to be in the trendy widescreen format, Wacom has got a new interactive pen display that might put a smile on your face. Enter the Cintiq 20WSX, a follow-up to the company's wildly popular 21UX which provides a 16:10 aspect ratio at 1680 x 1050 resolution, giving you 20.1-inches of sweet, succulent workspace to throw down your ideas. Like other models in the Cintiq line, the 20WSX comes equipped with programmable ExpressKeys and finger-sensitive Touch Strips, so you can get speedy access to oft-used tools, like that hideous "emboss" effect you keep putting on everything. Regardless of your artistic choices, the tablet is available now for $1,999.

[Thanks, Topi]